Obituaries
George B. Goff
George B. Goff, 84, a former Oklahoma City fire chief, died on December 2.
He became fire chief in 1921 at the age of 28, the youngest man to hold such a position in any city of comparable size in the United States at that time. He served as chief for 17 years before resigning to run as the successful Democratic candidate for sheriff in 1938.
While he was fire chief, he hired many young athletes out of high school to work on the Oklahoma City Fire Department. They worked the night shift from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. and attended Oklahoma City University in the daytime. Many of these young men stayed on after graduation and went up through the ranks to chief officers.
Goff purchased the first “deck pipe” pumpers in the United States in 1922—three Seagrave pumpers equipped with a deck gun piped to the discharge of the pump and with four 2 ½ -inch intakes in the rear over the step so that lines could be laid to this apparatus in front of a structure and water pumped into these intakes. The pumpers also had the regular 5-inch intakes on each side of the rig.
A. L. P. Schmeichel
A. L. P. Schmeichel, retired chief engineer of the West Virginia Rating Bureau, died on January 23. He was 74 years of age.
Schmeichel joined the rating bureau of July 1, 1927 and retired on October 1,1968. He was on the program of the Fire Department Instructors program 14 times, and was an honorary member of both the Memphis Fire Department, and the Ripley, W. Va., Volunteer Fire Department. He was a member of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers, and was a charter member of the exploratory committee for the use of water fog.
